Healdsburg’s Spoonbar adds more bar space, expands lunch

Cocktail magician and bar manager Scott Beattie has been wanting some extra elbow room, to pull off his arms-in-the-air, vigorous shaking-drinks routines as he mixes beverages for often standing-room-only crowds at Healdsburg’s Spoonbar.

By next week, he’ll have it, when the restaurant in H2hotel expands its bar, to nearly double its size, with a new space that takes over an edge of the dining room and even part of the hotel reception area.

Spoonbar II is scheduled to debut by next Thursday, complete with its own dedicated bartender. There will be an additional wines-on-tap section, and a lengthier food menu, too, featuring snack-y bites like red chiles that have been dehydrated, flash-fried, then lightly salted so they go down like addictive pepper chips.

According to H2hotel marketing director Circe Sher, the bar part of Spoonbar has proven to be enormously popular since the eco-chic hotel opened last July. With floor-to-ceiling glass walls that slide open from the restaurant to the street outside, it hasn’t been unusual to see overflow clientele spilling toward the sidewalk lining Healdsburg’s main drag.

Lunch service is also getting the bigger picture view – as of yesterday, the mid-day Mediterranean menu is now offered five days a week, running Thursday through Monday, instead of its former Friday and Saturday.